Court filings reveal contradicting accounts of Texas Southern University law dean's exit

Texas Southern University’s law school dean was fired this summer after a series of missteps that caused the faculty to cast a vote of no confidence, according to lawyers from the Texas Attorney General's Office. Officials at the Historically Black University were tight-lipped about Joan R.M. Bullock’s dismissal in June, but recently filed court documents cast light on the turmoil within the Thurgood Marshall School of Law. Bullock is suing the university, its regents and other leaders, alleging that she was stripped of her position and tenure without cause. The attorney general's office, which is representing the public university, outlined in a federal court filing some of the reasons for why they said the former dean was fired.

They also argued a motion for the case’s dismissal Wednesday and denied that Bullock was ever granted tenure -- a highly protected status that provides educators job security and safeguards the freedom to teach and conduct research as they choose. “Her claims turn on a fact that she cannot establish; they depend on her having been granted tenure -- which she wasn’t,” state attorneys said in their motion to dismiss the lawsuit. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office also filed a letter Oct. 13 and argued that Bullock lacked standing and jurisdiction to sue. The lawyers called her complaint a “shotgun pleading” -- one they said alleges conclusions and not facts. Bullock's attorneys, Dorian Vandenberg-Rodes and Todd Slobin, rejected those arguments and affirmed the former dean's alleged tenure status. "The defendants' motion to dismiss is baseless," they said in a statement. "We believe it was filed in an attempt to delay responding on the merits of the case. TSU's governing body and officials are responsible for their actions, and they may not abuse tenure protections or terminate a tenured professor absent serious misconduct -- which does not exist in this matter."